Eating for Beginners Page 22

  "What is that?" I asked.

  "White and dark chocolate macadamia nut brownies," he said, his frustrations forgotten. He patted the top of the cake gently, as if it were a baby, cut a small slice, and sniffed it appreciatively before putting it in his mouth. His face relaxed with pleasure. "Do you have any idea how much I love my job?" he said in a small, happy voice, looking sideways at me.

  "Even when you're in a bad mood?"

  "Even when I'm in a bad mood," he replied, sliding his brownie creation onto the speed rack to cool. It was as though everything boring or stressful about the day had never happened.

  August let me plate all the desserts that night, and before long I had mastered the toasting and drizzling and arranging. I couldn't invent a dessert, but I could plate one with the best of them, and he saw this development as the rare opportunity it was. The next day at around five-thirty, when everything was set up for dinner service, he took advantage of my presence and left early. He had been in the kitchen until midnight the night before and back at nine A.M. to do his prep work, and he was exhausted. On the menu that night were the new brownies, served with mascarpone cream and coconut dulce de leche, the last of the Ruby Red grapefruit sorbet with roasted apple purée and citrus salad, a pineapple rice pudding, a warm chocolate soufflé with quince purée and hazelnuts, and a sweet corn pudding with shortbread cookie crumble and sweet cream—and he was trusting me to make them all look good in his name.

  All I had to go on was the note he had left for me, written on a paper towel and stuck into the ticket rail above the pastry counter.

  —More corn pudding and rice pudding downstairs.

  — corn behind the animals

  — need to keep putting on the mini-oven

  — my cell [here he had written his phone number]

  — I

  I never figured out what he'd meant to write on that last line, but I made it through the evening anyway. Up front David and Greg were experimenting with breadmaking to fill the time before tickets started coming in, but I had no part in that. I was on pastry, and I felt I shouldn't leave my appointed post. As they fired fish and meat, I warmed up chocolate soufflés in the toaster oven and put each one on a plate with a small pile of toasted hazelnuts on top and a half-moon smear of quince purée next to it. I pulled parfait glasses of pudding out of the lowboy and piped cream onto them in neat little spirals, then dusted them with cookie crumbs. I went down to the walk-in for more corn pudding and had to shove my body against a pig to get at it, just as I had a year earlier to reach the bacon. Then I took the pudding up to the kitchen and plated some more. I drizzled dulce de leche and spooned citrus salad. I ate constantly, sugary bite after sugary bite, and went home wired and happy.

  The next afternoon when I walked into work, August, already in his chef's jacket and pants, Che Guevara hat on his head, was standing in front of the counter at the pastry station with a blank look on his face.

  "What's wrong?" I asked, feeling anxious about my performance the night before. Had I inadvertently mis-drizzled or stacked too precariously?

  "I need to do something with bread," August said, zombie-like. He gestured toward the speed rack, where all the bread left over from the previous night's dinner service lay on a sheet tray under Saran Wrap. Nothing went unused in the kitchen, so it had been given to him to transform into a dessert. "I'm looking for something to do with bread pudding," he said again, turning to me this time. "Let's go downstairs."

  I started to protest that I certainly wasn't going to be the one who figured out what to do, but he silenced me. We walked down to the shelves of dry goods in front of the walk-in, me still in my street clothes, and stood there pondering the boxes of nuts and dried fruit and beans and seasonings.

  Without really thinking, I said, "How about prunes?"

  August's eyes lit up. "Yeah. That's going to be good."

  Reaching for a big plastic bag of prunes, he told me, "Write down that today you invented the Melanie Bread Pudding."

  I stayed downstairs for a minute or two after he'd headed up with the prunes, changing into my chef's jacket and basking in the glow of my first-ever menu idea. Then I tore up to the kitchen to put it into execution.

  The bread pudding came out spectacularly. It seemed like a good note to go out on, and I decided that evening that it was time to turn my attention to writing instead of cooking.

  ***

  Walking home that last night, I suddenly realized I was looking forward to seeing what Jules might eat the following day. He was into all kinds of things that late spring—lots of melon (I forgave him for it) and anything sour or spicy. He was adding fresh fruits and vegetables at an amazing clip as they became available, and I was beginning to think that rather than having a totally undeveloped palate, he might have the kind I had gone to applewood to learn about: he ate what was in season, not because he knew he was supposed to, but because it tasted good. He had never even sampled a frozen vegetable, but now that fresh ones were abundant at the farmers' market, he was choosing and trying new foods each week. Any cheese other than cream cheese was still off limits, and he hadn't gone anywhere near a piece of pasta or meat, or even a hot dog, but I couldn't quite remember why those details had seemed so important to me.

  A few months passed, during which I sat at my desk and began writing this book. Often, around six o'clock, I paused for a minute in whatever I was doing, whether it was typing on my computer or getting dinner together for Jules, distracted by a longing to be part of what I knew was going on in the kitchen down the street. I wondered what produce the summer—and the Angello's truck—had brought to the restaurant, and what the chefs were making out of it. I missed the sense of collective anticipation at the beginning of each dinner shift and, if not the sweat, certainly Greg's salsa verde. At applewood I had been given a larger sense of the world that had to do not only with food but with community, and I felt the absence keenly.

  But I also found that community in other places—the same places where I had once felt utterly confused. One of my local markets now stocked produce from Angello's, and I was thrilled to discover Lucky Dog lettuce and carrots along with other locally grown produce, all of which I bought without a clue as to what I would do with it. On weekends I went to the farmers' market and purchased with abandon. One stand sold a mix of salad greens that was as addictive as it was expensive, but I now understood exactly where my money was going and why I wanted to spend it there instead of on a bag of organic mesclun at the supermarket. Cato Corner had a cheese stand, where I happily indulged my craving for Bloomsday, and there was a fish stand that sold dayboat scallops and other local fish (by midsummer I no longer felt queasy at the mere mention of boats).

  I didn't know all of these farmers and fishermen and meat purveyors personally, but I now knew where they came from, philosophically if not literally. I had entered their lives and found them less different from my own life than I'd expected; out of this understanding had come the balance I'd been looking for.

  Though I missed the restaurant, it was nice to be home for dinner every night. As the summer rolled on, we sat in the dining room in the evenings with the windows open, listening to kids playing in the park, sharing whatever we could with Jules while we ate, which was still not all that much. I had ceased to worry about what he ate, not because he had suddenly turned into an omnivore, but because I no longer felt guilty about him not being one.

  On one of these nights I roasted a chicken and we ate it with coleslaw and corn on the cob. Jules was feasting on his corn when Noah asked me if the chefs ever made chicken at applewood.

  "Only for family meal," I said, picking up a chicken leg in my fingers. "David told me he had a recipe he loved on the menu when they first opened, but no one ever ordered chicken, so he stopped putting it on."

  "Too bad," said Noah. "I like chicken."

  Jules put down his corn. "I like chicken," he announced.

  Noah and I exchanged a knowing look. We had heard it all be
fore.

  "I want chicken," Jules insisted.

  Noah passed him the plate.

  He took a leg. Then he took a bite, and all three of us dug into our dinner.

  Under the Bed Almond Cookies

  1 pound almond paste

  ½ cup sugar

  ½ cups egg whites

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  2. Cream almond paste and sugar together.

  3. Add egg whites.

  4. Drop mixture onto a cookie sheet in ball shapes about 1%-2 inches in diameter, making sure they do not touch one another and have room to spread.

  5. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

  Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

  Melanie's Prune Bread Pudding

  2 cups dried prunes

  2 tablespoons vanilla

  1–2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

  a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

  1½ teaspoons salt

  1 loaf good white bread, cut into cubes and left to dry out overnight

  ½ pound (2 sticks) butter, melted

  3 cups heavy cream

  4 whole eggs and 5 egg yolks

  1 cup sour cream

  ½ cup sugar

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  2. Put prunes in a saucepan with the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Add water to about two inches above the prunes. Cook down over medium heat to the tops of the prunes.

  3. Strain the prunes and purée them in a food processor or blender.

  4. Place the bread cubes in a bowl and pour the melted butter over them, tossing to make sure they're all buttered.

  5. Mix together the cream, eggs, and sour cream in another bowl.

  6. Add the prune purée and the sugar to the cream/egg mixture. If the mixture is not totally liquid, add more cream.

  7. Place the bread cubes in an unbuttered oblong pan, then pour the prune/cream mixture over them. The bread should be completely soaked.

  8. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 1 hour.

  9. After an hour, remove the foil and return the pan to the oven just long enough to brown the top of the bread pudding. Let cool before cutting into squares to serve.

  Serves about 6, depending on how big you cut the pieces.

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  Acknowledgments

  The people in these pages who let me into their lives, showed me the joys and difficulties of their work, introduced me to their children, and took me seriously when I was underdressed for the job at hand, did so because I came to them through David and Laura Shea, whose good word is all their friends and acquaintances need to throw open their doors without question. I (along with most of the people I know) am still marveling that the Sheas allowed me into their restaurant and let me cook food just because I asked them if I could. It is because of their fearlessness, patience, and good humor that Eating for Beginners exists.

  I an indebted to Mark Gillman and Elizabeth MacAlister of Cato Corner Farm; Richard and Holley Giles of Lucky Dog Organics; Joe Angello of Angello's Distributing; Lydia Ratcliff of Lovejoy Brook Farm and Fancy Meats from Vermont; Lucy Georgeff and Oliver Owen, now of East Hill Farm and Pastured Meats from East Hill Farm; and Kevin Wark and Mike Lohr. Each of them gave me experiences and wisdom far beyond the scope of this book and was incredibly good company, too.

  Thank you to Greg, who more than anyone but David was stuck with me on the line and somehow always behaved as though I belonged there; to Liza, Sarah, and August, who all taught me an enormous amount and were fun to be around on top of it; and to the servers at applewood during my time there, who tolerated me in the kitchen even when their orders were a bit late to come out. A special thank you to Frank and another to Pete, who kept me in coffee and good spirits whenever my enthusiasm flagged.

  I wouldn't be able to write a word without Brad McKee ever at the ready. I couldn't do it without MacKenzie Bezos, either. Thanks also to Patrick Keefe (still my fellow neurotic) and Liz Leber for reading various sections at various stages and urging me along. I am grateful to Wyatt Prunty not only for writing the miraculous "A Winter's Tale" but for graciously allowing me to reprint the lines here that have sustained me for a very long time.

  Thank you to Christy Fletcher, whose head for both business and books (as well as many other things) I envy. As always, I'm amazed by my incalculable good fortune in counting Andrea Schulz as both editor and friend.

  Without Noah Isenberg, I would be somewhere else entirely—somewhere far less rich and surprising—from where I am in life. To the lovely and astonishing Jules I owe more than I'll ever be able to write down.

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  MELANIE REHAK is the author of Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her; which won an Edgar Award and an Agatha Award. Rehak has written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Real Simple, and other periodicals. Her column on food books appears in Bookforum.

  Jacket design & lettering by Patrick Barry

  Jacket illustration (cherries) © Illustration Works /Corbis

  Author photograph © Noah Isenberg

  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  www.hmhbooks.com

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